Saturday, September 17, 2011

AMID DISSATISFACTION OF THE U.K.POLICE and the complaints of failure to carry out proper disciplinary procedures, THE COMMITTEE APPOINTED UNDER THE 1987 EUROPEAN CONVENTION FOR THE PREVENTION OF TORTURE AND INHUMAN OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT began an investigation into ill-treatment to suspects by the UK Police.

This follows three successful high court challenges.

This involves deaths in custody, a problem that the UK police hoped would go away after many such incidents in the 1980's. One case they were looking at involved torture by police officers. The Crown prosecution Service were yet again criticised over decisions not to pursue ill-treatment prosecutions of officers - one high court challenge was against the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The Committee which was not happy with the way the CPS conducted cases of police torture accusations is authorised to carry out broader ranging investigations into police discipline. They are to examine why a significant number of police officers escape disciplinary charges, despite jury awards of damages to claimants in civil cases for assault, malicious prosecution and false imprisonment.

They said there was huge failings in the Crown Prosecution Service who seemed to fail the public in the evidence of clear wrong-doing by police officers and attempted cover-ups by police authorities trying to ignore the problem.

The Commission intend to inspect documents of the relevant police areas, the police complaints authority and the Crown Prosecution Service. ' We are not here specifically to look into police corruption, but it is an issue that needs serious tackling in the U.K.' said one spokesperson.

Court 8 was busy with DETECTIVE CONSTABLE AUSTIN WARNES who admitted conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, his co-defendants were in court 6. Warnes was accused of a plot to plant drugs on a mother so that the husband could get custody of their sons.

Court 11 was busy with POLICE CONSTABLE DAVID EVANS, DETECTIVE CONSTABLE CHRISTOPHER CARTER, and DETECTIVE CONSTABLE LEONARD GERRARD all charged with the theft of ecstasy tablets. The drugs with a street value of £500,000 (40,000 tablets), were to be sold on the streets to junkies and pushers.

Court 17 was busy with POLICE CONSTABLE ANDREW WIGLEY and POLICE CONSTABLE SIMON WILSON, both charged with aggravated assault and attempting to pervert the course of justice. Wigley was accused of helping Wilson to cover up the crime by falsifying his notes.

Court 18 was busy with POLICE CONSTABLE RICHARD SAMS and WOMAN POLICE CONSTABLE PATRICIA McGOVERN who were charged with false imprisonment and attempting to pervert the course of justice. They are said to have stopped a motorist late at night and said he was in the bus lane. An arrest followed in which Constable Sams assaulted the man occasioning actual bodily harm. This latter charge was added to the other charges the constable faced.

IN 1979 TEACHER AND PROTESTOR BLAIR PEACH WAS KILLED BY POLICE UNLAWFULLY.

No police officer was charged with his death and the whole affair has been kept a secret for thirty years. The Met Police say that the facts will be revealed soon, but we doubt that very much. Blair Peach was murdered in Southall at the hands of the SPECIAL PATROL GROUP ---( they were involved in the beating up of the Holloway boys and thirty officers refused to give information regarding corrupt officers). One man in charge -- Inspector Alan Murray was blamed for the circumstances in which several un-named officers clubbed the man to death. He claims to this day it was too confusing at the time and denies involvement. He admits people were assaulted and thrown down flights of stairs by his officers and regrets this. The DPP now CPS said no to prosecuting any officers at the time and covered the incident in a 'secrecy tag' and files have been held in secrecy until now - thirty years after the event.

APRIL 2010 - It has now been officially revealed that an unidentified police officer did kill Blair Peach despite the many denials, and that many police officers on that day and involved lied about their accounts of what happened in order to cover-up the incident.

A case that will decide the legality of the police containment tactic of kettling is to be heard at the European court of human rights in Strasbourg this week.

The case, brought by Lois Austin, began in 2001 after she was detained along with 3,000 protesters for up to seven hours at Oxford Circus in London during May Day demonstrations.

Trapped alongside her were tourists and newspaper vendors who were not part of the protest but were refused permission to leave the cordoned area by the Metropolitan police.

“I am deeply concerned that this tactic will discourage the next generation of peaceful protesters to express their legitimate concerns.”

The 2001 incident was one of the first major uses of kettling, and came as a response to protests by anti-capitalists the year before that saw Parliament Square vandalised and a statue of Winston Churchill defaced and daubed with graffiti.

Kettling has since been used by a number of police forces, particularly in the last 12 months as a response to anti-austerity protests, and most prominently during student demonstrations last winter.

In April the high court ruled that thousands of protesters were illegally detained in a kettle at G20 protests in 2009.

In 2009 the House of Lords ruled that the 2001 Oxford Circus "crowd control measures" had been proportionate. Today, lawyers acting for Lois Austin will argue that the ruling was flawed on the basis that it allowed Lois Austin's liberty to be deprived.

They will say in Strasbourg that article five of the European convention on human rights is an absolute right, and police detention tactics may not be justified by outcomes on the day and must be specified in law.

Lois Austin said: "Since the House of Lords judgment, the police have increased their use of the tactic of kettling, with disastrous consequences for the right to peaceful protest and the safety of protesters.

"I am deeply concerned that this tactic will discourage the next generation of peaceful protesters to express their legitimate concerns."

Kat Craig, of Christian Khan solicitors, said: "The police have, wrongly, taken the House of Lords judgment as a carte blanche to kettle protesters even when they are exercising their legitimate rights to express their opposition to government policies.

"The judgment threatens other aspects of personal liberty which are highly prized in any democratic society, such as the right not to be interned. It is imperative that this decision is challenged and [that] the balance which has for decades been struck between personal liberty and the power of the state is restored."

Sunday, September 4, 2011

The bread knife went straight through Smileys chest, first transecting the 5th costal cartilage and the adjoining intercostal muscle then cutting through the left lung with a slicing type entry, leaving exit wounds to the heart. The knife wound was almost vertical and the entry measured 5.2 cm!..

Friday, September 2, 2011

Reggae star Smiley Culture, real name David Emmanuel, had allegedly stabbed himself to death during his arrest. Photograph: David Corio/Redferns

Police officers who carried out the raid in which the reggae star Smiley Culture allegedly stabbed himself to death are unlikely to face criminal charges, disciplinary action or be officially questioned, the Guardian has learned.

The disclosure comes despite an admission by the Independent Police Complaints Commission that the operation at the singer's home in Warlingham, Surrey, on 15 March was "not satisfactory" and that the actions of at least one officer have been criticised.

In a confidential letter to the singer's family, Mike Franklin, commissioner of the IPCC, said: "The [IPCC] investigation has identified aspects of the operation which were not satisfactory, and criticisms have been made of some of the officer's actions. However, these do not meet the threshold for misconduct under the police misconduct system."

The family of Smiley Culture, whose real name was David Emmanuel, has bitterly criticised the Metropolitan police officers involved, none of whom have been suspended, and the IPCC's decision that the officers were witnesses and not suspects, meaning they cannot be compelled to submit to a formal interview.

They want to know why the four officers handcuffed 48-year-old Emmanuel after his fatal injury. An independent pathologist's report has stated that the stab wound would have "cause[d] rapid collapse and death within a few minutes".

They also question why the officer in the kitchen at the time of Emmanuel's death refused a direct request by the IPCC's lead investigator to give a formal interview.

"Even if foul play didn't happen that day, the officers should be being held responsible for being so incompetent that my dad died," saidShanice McConnachie, Emmanuel's 17-year-old daughter. "Whatever went wrong and led to my dad's death, it's the officers's fault for not doing their job properly. My dad was in their care.

"Their story just doesn't add up and until it does, I can't believe that my dad killed himself, " she added.

"My dad was under arrest and had an officer specifically allocated to his care. How could he walk around the kitchen and grab hold of a knife, without that officer seeing? And why would he? Even the police who were there admit he had been completely calm and cooperative up until that point."

"After he was stabbed, why did they police handcuff him? Our pathologist's report says he would have died almost instantly," she asked. "The police should have been focused on keeping his bleeding to a minimum and calling an ambulance. The IPCC and police don't seem to care about helping us get to the truth of what really went on."

In his letter to the family, Franklin said the IPCC cannot force the officers to be interviewed because they "have always been witnesses [and] as a witness, police officers … cannot be compelled to be interviewed about what they have seen". He added: "As they are not suspects, they will not be formally interviewed."

In the absence of further information from the officers, Franklin said the IPCC has "not found any evidence which would suggest any criminal acts were committed by any of the officers in the house". Because Emmanuel's death will be the subject of an inquest, he refused to elaborate on how this decision was made.

The four officers have given voluntary accounts of what happened, but Franklin admitted these did little to clear up the mystery. They do, however, confirm initial reports that Emmanuel, who faced drugs charges, "remained calm and compliant throughout and as [the police] were clearing up and the search had concluded, [his] demeanour suddenly changed."

Franklin has refused to give the officers' accounts to the Emmanuel family, saying the coroner "has asked that there is no disclosure at this time."

In the leaked letter, Franklin admitted there were no fingerprints on the knife found plunged into Emmanuel's chest. "Contrary to public perception, this is not unusual and can happen for many reasons," he wrote, adding that DNA matching Emmanuel's was found on the hilt.

Because the officers' actions are not classed as misconduct, the only formal disciplinary action they can now face is if the Met initiates an unsatisafactory performance procedure. The IPCC cannot direct a police force to initiate this procedure and although it can lead to dismissal, that will only happen if the officers do not improve their performance over a period of time.

The Met said the force cannot comment until after receiving the IPCC report.

If the report indicated there may have been a criminal offence committed, Franklin would send the investigation report to the Crown Prosecution Service. Given his admission in the letter that the investigation did not find any evidence of criminal acts by officers, this seems unlikely.

The family hired Dr Nat Cary, one of Britain's most eminent consultant forensic pathologists to conduct a second post-mortem on Emmanuel. His report, which has been seen by the Guardian, , concurred with the official cause of Emmanuel's death: a single stab wound to the heart. "I would expect such a stab wound to cause rapid collapse and death within a few minutes," he said.

He also acknowledged: "There is no evidence of any sharp type injuries to the hands, including no evidence of defensive type injuries against sharp weapon attack."

But he added: "In many cases with a single stab wound, no defensive type injuries are seen, including in cases with third party involvement."

Cary concluded: "Whilst it is clearly possible that the fatal stab wound was as described a self-inflicted injury, on pathological grounds alone there is nothing to determine that this was in fact the case, although it is fair to say that the site chosen is one of the sites that may be used in self-infliction."

EX-POLICEMAN JAILED OVER CHILD PORN

A former police officer has been jailed for making and distributing more than 50,000 images of child

Friday September 2,2011

A former police officer who pleaded guilty to making and distributing more than 50,000 sickening images of child abuse has been jailed for 27 months.

A former police officer who pleaded guilty to making and distributing more than 50,000 sickening images of child abuse has been jailed for 27 months.

Philip Savidge, 26, used the username babypass2004 on a file-sharing website to distribute indecent still and moving images.

He resigned as an acting sergeant with Sussex Police, based at East Grinstead, on the day he was arrested at the home he shared with his parents and brothers.

After seizing two computer hard drives and three memory sticks, police found 52,672 images, some of which were at the highest level five category. His collection, described by a judge as "horrendous", also included 35 extreme pictures involving animals and 1,646 computer-generated indecent images.

Lewes Crown Court heard that Savidge's fascination with child porn spiralled "out of control" and that he felt relieved when he was eventually caught.

Savidge, of Alexandra Road, Burgess Hill, West Sussex, compared his collection to hoarding sporting images and said he started it to cope with stress.

Prosecutor Martin Yale said: "He said that since he became involved in indecent images the situation snowballed and he had collected in his own words 'a fair amount', mainly of young boys."

The ages of the children featured ranged from four to 12. The court heard that Savidge was a Scout leader, working with mainly boys. He also held other positions of trust involving contact with children, including as a cricket coach, teaching children aged eight to 18, and he also worked with police cadets.

On Friday, he pleaded guilty to 42 counts of making and distributing indecent images, and possessing extreme pictures.

Sentencing him, Judge Richard Brown told the ex-policeman: "These are, in my view, wicked and evil offences. Each picture represents a child being abused. There are a horrendous number of images in this case. Although it doesn't influence this case, you, as a police officer, should have realised the seriousness of what you were doing."